The architectures of modern avionics systems need to satisfy particularly constraining design requirements, specifically in terms of the performance, the safety, and the reliability of such systems, and also in terms of the weights of the various devices making up such systems (computers, data concentrators, sensors, etc.), and of the cables interconnecting these devices.
These various “technical” requirements often tend to direct architecture designers towards opposing solutions; they are also themselves liable to come into conflict with targets in terms of costs (development costs, recurrent costs involved in manufacturing equipment, etc.).
The choice of data bases and of communications protocols used in architectures for providing communication between the various devices is typically subjected to problems of this type. Thus, in an electric flight control system that presents an architecture that is redundant and that includes numerous devices, it is fundamental firstly to ensure data transmission times that are as short as possible, and secondly to minimize the physical connections between the devices in the architecture, while nevertheless maintaining development and manufacturing costs that are reasonable.
Each of the various available solutions presents disadvantages that are well known: slowness of communication and weight of cables for the ARINC 429 and MIL-STD-1553 standards, cost of deploying an AFDX network, etc.